Known in the art is an internal combustion engine in which an exhaust gas recirculation system is provided for making exhaust gas which is exhausted into an engine exhaust passage recirculate to the inside of the intake passage, an exhaust purification catalyst is arranged inside of the engine exhaust passage and a hydrocarbon feed valve is arranged the engine exhaust passage upstream of the exhaust purification catalyst, a precious metal catalyst is carried on an exhaust gas flow surface of the exhaust purification catalyst and a basic exhaust gas flow surface part is formed around the precious metal catalyst, and, at the time of engine operation, hydrocarbons are injected from the hydrocarbon feed valve by a predetermined period and thereby NOx which is contained in the exhaust gas is removed (for example, see Patent Literature 1). In this internal combustion engine, a high NOx removal rate can be obtained even if the temperature of the exhaust purification catalyst becomes a high temperature.